INTERNATIONAL - Afghan President visits violence-hit Ghazni city

The five-day battles with the Taliban in Ghazni, the capital of Ghazni province, killed at least 100 members of Afghan security forces and 35 civilians before calm was restored on Tuesday.

At least 48 people, the majority of them students, were killed when a suicide blast ripped through a school in an area of Kabul Wednesday, officials said, the latest assault on Afghanistan´s war-weary capital.

It was not immediately clear how the bomber managed to sneak into the building, used by the Shia community as an education centre, in the Dasht-i Barcha area of Kabul.

The explosion initially set off gunfire from Afghan guards in the area, leading to assumptions that there were more attackers involved, but officials later said all indications were that there was only one bomber.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visited Ghazni city, where he instructed the allocation of up to 20 million US dollars to reconstruct the provincial administration facilities, the Afghan Presidential Palace said Friday.

Photo taken on August 19, 2018 shows a damaged Bazar after Taliban attack in Ghazni city, capital of Ghazni province, Afghanistan.

There were no injuries and no one claimed responsibility for firing the rockets.

"The US continues to stand with the government and people of Afghanistan and will continue to support their efforts to achieve peace and security in their country", said tweeted the US Embassy in Kabul.

"Daesh were saying, "if we are not safe in the mountains, if our children are not safe in their houses, then we will not hold back from attacks on children", said Allah Nazar Amini, the principal of the Malikyar school.

The week's violence has raised questions over their ability to hold off the resurgent Taliban.

In his most detailed comments on the Taliban's assault on the eastern city of Ghazni since it began August 10, Mattis said the Taliban had six objectives in and around the city and failed to seize any of them.

"Death and hatred to this government and filthy terrorist that everyday they are killing innocent Afghans", he added.

Commandos were also deployed to the scene to help contain the fighting, according to another security official.

Last Friday, hundreds of Taliban fighters had launched an attack on Ghazni, the capital of the Ghazni province, leading to five days of clashes between the rebels and the security forces that killed almost 500 people, including 326 Taliban fighters, and over one hundred members of the security forces.

The Taliban have not claimed a major assault in Kabul for weeks. The Taliban hung on in Ghazni for almost five days before US-backed Afghan forces flushed them out. The attack also left seven rebels dead and five others wounded.

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